“I know nothing, and remember nothing, about Mrs. Hillersdon. My friends are, for the most part, those of my husband’s choice, and I pay no visits without his approval. He does not wish me to visit at Riverdale. You have forced me to give you a plain answer, Mr. Castellani.”
“Why not? Plain truth is always best. I am sorry Mr. Greswold has interdicted my charming friend. You can have no idea how excellent a woman she is, or how admirable a wife. Tom Hillersdon might have searched the county from border to border and not have found as good a woman—looked at as the woman best calculated to make him happy. And what delightful people she has brought about him! One of the most interesting men I ever met arrived yesterday, and is to preach the hospital sermon at Romsey next Sunday. He is an old friend of yours.”
“A clergyman, and an old friend of mine, at Riverdale!”
“A man of ascetic life and exceptional culture. I never heard any man talk of Dante better than he talked to me last night in a moonlight stroll on the terrace, while the other men were in the smokingroom.”
“Surely you do not mean Mr. Cancellor, the Vicar of St. Elizabeth’s, Parchment Street?”
“That is the man—Clement Cancellor, Vicar of St. Elizabeth’s. He looks like a mediæval monk just stepped out of one of Bellini’s altar-pieces.”
“He is the noblest, most unselfish of men,” said Mildred warmly; “he has given his life to doing good among rich and poor. It is so long since I have seen him. We have asked him to Enderby very often, but he has always been too busy to come. And to think that he should be in this neighbourhood and I know nothing about it; and to think that he should go to Riverdale rather than come here!”
“He had hardly any option. It was Mrs. Hillersdon who asked him to preach on Hospital Sunday. She extorted a promise from him three months ago in London. The Vicar of Romsey was enchanted. ‘You are the cleverest woman I know,’ he said. ‘No one else could have got me such a great gun.’”
“A great gun—Mr. Cancellor a great gun! I can only think of him as I knew him when I was twelve years old: a tall, thin young man, in a very shabby coat—he was curate at St. Elizabeth’s then—very gaunt and hollow-cheeked, but with such a sweet smile. He used to come twice a week to teach me the history of the Bible and the Church. He made me love both.”
“He is gaunt and hollow-cheeked still, tall and bony and sallow, and he still wears a shabby coat. You will not find much difference in him, I fancy—only so many more years of hard work and self-sacrifice, ascetic living and nightly study. A man to know Dante as he does must have given years of his life to that one poet—and I am told that in literature Cancellor is an all-round man. His monograph on Pascal is said to be the best of a brilliant series of such studies.”